Modelling and Coordination of a Swarm of
Quadrotors Using Lagrange Dynamics and Potential
Functions
Bedir Halcı, Veysel Gazi, and Onur Cihan
Marmara University, Faculty of Engineering, Dept. Electrical and Electronics Engineering
34722 Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey
bedirhalci6108@gmail.com, {veysel.gazi, onur.cihan}@marmara.edu.tr
Abstract—In this article we develop an energy based model
for the dynamics of a swarm of quadrotors using Lagrangian
approach. Both the individual quadrotor dynamics and the
interaction dynamics between the agents in the swarm are
modeled within the framework. Artificial potential energy and
the corresponding potential forces are utilized for modeling
the interaction between the quadrotors. Various simulations are
performed to illustrate the viability and effectiveness of the
developed swarm model. The kinetic and potential energy of
the swarm is also illustrated.
Index Terms—swarms, multi-agent dynamic systems, quadro-
tors, quadcopters, UAVs, distributed coordination and control,
potential functions, Lagrangian dynamics, energy based modeling
I. I NTRODUCTION
Multi-agent dynamic systems or simply engineering swarms
are systems composed of multiple agents moving in co-
ordination and possibly performing cooperative tasks. Such
systems may be composed of ground robots, aerial vehicles,
satellites, sea or deep space vehicles. Various problems such as
aggregation, social foraging, formation control, and distributed
agreement (consensus) have been studied for engineering
swarms [1]. There are range of individual agent models
considered in the literature including single integrator, double
integrator, fully actuated (omni-directional) model with uncer-
tainties, unicycle model with velocity constraints and model
uncertainties and others. The basic principles for developing
these models are usually the agent kinematic constraints (if
any) and Newton’s laws of motion. This approach is based
on the forces acting on the system. Alternatively, to model
the system dynamics it is possible to use Lagrangian based
approach, which is based on energy. This approach was used
in [2] where the individual agents were considered as simple
point masses and the inter-agent interactions were modeled
using Lagrangian based approach. In this paper, we consider a
swarm of quadrotor aerial robots and model both the dynamics
of the individual quadrotors as well as the overall swarm
interactions and dynamics using energy based Lagrangian
approach. We use artificial potential functions to model the
potential energy of the swarm composition and interaction of
the agents in the swarm.
Please address all correspondance to Veysel Gazi
sel.gazi@marmara.edu.tr).
978-1-7281-0303-7/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - MARMARA UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on August 07,2020 at 18:59:11 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Quadrotors are unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) with four
rotors which generate the trust force and the rotational mo-
ments about its body axes. Research on UAVs and swarms
of UAVs has been constantly growing in recent years. This
is manly due to the large number of applications of UAVs
and UAV swarms in diverse areas ranging from agriculture
to defense [3]. Utilizing swarm of UAVs (instead of a single
large and complex UAV) may allow utilization of multiple
sensors, actuator, payload or other capabilities simultaneously
and achieving complex tasks which are beyond the capability
of a single agent. In other words, use of quadrotors as a swarm
may allow them to utilize the resources/capabilities of the
other quadrotors in the swarm and achieve more complicated
missions through these extra capabilities. This is in addition to
the advantage of parallelism in the system and general swarm
preperties such as flexibility and robustness to individual agent
failures. All these have the potential to significantly increase
the performance of the individual agent as well as the overall
group [4]–[8]. Such increase in performance is well known in
swarms in nature [1].
Achieving group formations is an important problem in
multi-agent dynamic systems. The corresponding algorithms
in the literature may be categorized into position-based,
displacement-based, and distance-based strategies [9]. The
model developed in this paper may be categorized within the
distance based strategy, since the potential energy of the swarm
and therefore the arising potential interaction forces depend
only on the distance between the agents. In contrast to the
existing models in the literature, which are mostly based on
Newtonian dynamics, our model here is developed based on on
Lagrangian dynamics. Therefore, it is based on energy instead
of forces. This allows to easily monitor and keep track of the
kinetic, potential and overall energy of the individual agents
as well as the entire swarm.
The rest of the paper is organised as follows. In Section II,
the mathematical model of a single quadrotor is introduced
and the Lagrangian dynamics are discussed. In Section III,
the Lagrangian model is extended for a swarm of quadrotors
and a conservative interatomic-like potential based control law
is proposed in order to achieve auto-formation and collision
(vey- avoidance. The effectiveness of the proposed control laws is
verified by numerical simulations in Section IV. Finally we
963
 y
of the environment. However, it may also incorporate other
ω2 componenets such as artificial potential energy due to the inter-
f2 agent interactions in the swarm, as we will see in the next
section. For now, let us assume that the only source of potential
z ω3 ω1 energy is the gravity. Then, the Lagrangian of a quadrotor can
be written as
x
f3 z f1
m ˙> 1
y φ x L(q, q̇) = ξ ξ̇ + η̇ > J η̇ − mgz (1)
ψ 2 2
ω4
>
where q = ξ > , η >

θ f4 ∈ R6 denotes the generalized co-
Inertial Frame Body Frame
ordinates of the quadrotor, m is its mass, and g is the
gravitational acceleration. The first two terms in (1) represent
Fig. 1: Quadrotor schematic
the translational and rotational kinetic energy, respectively,
whereas the third term represents the gravitational potential
conclude the paper in Section V. energy. The matrix J is given by J = Wη> IWη ∈ R3×3
where I = diag{Ix , Iy , Iz } ∈ R3×3 is the inertia tensor of the
II. M ATHEMATICAL M ODEL OF A Q UADROTOR quadrotor and Wη ∈ R3×3 is the Jacobian matrix expressing
In this section we introduce a simple quadrotor dynamical the body rotational velocity vector in terms of the Euler angle
model and propose a control law which consists of trans- rates.
lational and rotational parts based on Langangian dynamics The Euler-Lagrange equations with external forces f =
which are to be extended to swarms in Section III. [fx , fy , fz ]> ∈ R3 and torques τ = [τφ , τθ , τψ ]> ∈ R3 can be
obtained as
A. Quadrotor Frames, Forces, and Generalized Coordinates  
f

d ∂L

∂L
= − . (2)
Fig. 1 illustrates the structure of a single quadrotor, the iner- τ dt ∂ q̇ ∂q
tial frame, Euler angles, body frame, and motor directions. Let
the absolute position of the quadrotor From the translational part in (2) the force vector f can be
in> Cartesian coordinates
written as

be denoted by the vector ξ = x, y, z ∈ R3 and the vector
 >
of Euler angles be denoted by η = φ, θ, ψ ∈ R3 where φ, f = mξ̈ + γ (3)
θ, and ψ represent the roll, pitch and yaw angles, which respec-  >
tively are the rotations around the x, y and z axes ofits body where γ = 0, 0, mg ∈ R3 . Note also that f is expressed
>
frame. We denote by the vector ω = ω1 , ω2 , ω3 , ω4 ∈ R4 in
 the inertial
> frame and is equal to f = RT , where T =
the angular velocities of the motors of the quadrotor. They are 0, 0, T ∈ R3 is the trust vector in body frame and R ∈
assumed to rotate in the directions illustrated in Fig. 1. R3×3 is the rotation matrix from the body frame to the inertial
Note that every single motor creates a force fi in a right- frame. Assuming Z-Y-X euler angles it is expressed as
handed direction. Furthermore, a torque τMi is created from  
the angular velocity and the acceleration of the motor. Since cψ cθ cψ sθ sφ − sψ cφ cψ sθ cφ + sψ sφ
the latter part is negligible as compared to the former part, R = sψ cθ sψ sθ sφ + cψ cφ sψ sθ cφ − cψ sφ  (4)
we have fi = kωi2 , τMi = bωi2 where k is the lift constant −sθ cθ sφ cθ cφ
and b is the drag Pconstant. Then the overall thrust T can be
4
written as T = i=1 fi = kω > ω, which is along the z-axis where sζ and cζ respectively stand for sin(ζ) and cos(ζ), ζ =
of the quadrotor body frame. Let the torques defined in the φ, θ, ψ. Note that R is an orthonormal matrix and R−1 = R>
directions of φ, θ and ψ be respectively denoted by τφ , τθ , is satisfied.
and τψ . We have τφ = lk(ω42 − ω22 ), τθ = lk(ω32 − ω12 ) and The matrix J ∈ R3×3 can be calculated as
τψ = bω > ω, where l is the distance between the motor and  
Ix 0 −Ix sθ
the center of the quadrotor.
J= 0 Iy c2φ + Iz s2φ (Iy − Iz )cφ sφ cθ  (5)
B. Quadrotor Dynamics −Ix sθ (Iy −Iz )cφ sφ cθ Ix s2θ +Iy s2φ c2θ +Iz c2φ c2θ
In this section, we utilize the Lagrangian model in order
where Ix , Iy and Iz are the moments of inertia about the
to represent the quadrotor dynamics. The derivation in this
x, y and z body axes, respectively. Since the quadrotor is
section mostly follows the work in [10] with some adaptations
symmetric, we have Ix = Iy . The torques about the body
and is included for completeness. The Lagrangian L is defined
axes of the quadrotor can be calculated from the rotational
as the difference between kinetic energy Ekin and potential
part in (2) as
energy Epot of the system. Kinetic energy of a quadrotor is
the summation of translational and rotational kinetic energies d 1 ∂
and the potential energy is usually the gravitational effect τ = J η̈ + (J )η̇ − (η̇ > J η̇) = J η̈ + C(η, η̇)η̇ (6)
dt 2 ∂η

964

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - MARMARA UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on August 07,2020 at 18:59:11 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 where the Coriolis term C(η, η̇) = [cij ] ∈ R3×3 , describes where Kpi and Kdi , i = x, y, z, are the proportional
the gyroscopic and centripetal affects whose components are and derivative gains, respectively. This controller does not
given by [10] take into consideration neither the mass of the quadro-
tor nor its orientation. These can be incorporated as
c11 = 0  >
mux , muy , (muz )/(cφ cθ ) ∈ R3 , which is defined in the
c12 = (Iy − Iz )(θ̇cφ sφ + ψ̇s2φ cθ ) + (Iz − Iy )ψ̇c2φ cθ − Ix ψ̇cθ global inertial frame. Then, the desired force vector in the
c13 = (Iz − Iy )ψ̇cφ sφ c2θ body frame Td = [Tdx , Tdy , Tdz ]> can be computed as
c21 = (Iz − Iy )(θ̇cφ sφ + ψ̇sφ cθ ) + (Iy − Iz )ψ̇c2φ cθ + Ix ψ̇cθ 
muz >

>
c22 = (Iz − Iy )φ̇cφ sφ Td = R mu x , muy , ∈ R3 ,
cφ cθ
c23 = −Ix ψ̇sθ cθ + Iy ψ̇s2φ sθ cθ + Iz ψ̇c2φ sθ cθ
which guarantees the translational control.
c31 = (Iy − Iz )ψ̇cφ sφ c2θ − Ix θ̇cθ For the rotational control to be consistent with the trans-
c32 = (Iz − Iy )(θ̇cφ sφ sθ + φ̇s2φ cθ ) + (Iy − Iz )φ̇c2φ cθ lational control, desired Euler angles ηd can be obtained as
+ Ix ψ̇sθ cθ Iy ψ̇s2φ sθ cθ − Iz ψ̇c2φ sθ cθ [11]
   
φd −atan2 (Tdy /Tdz )
c33 = (Iy − Iz )φ̇cφ sφ c2θ − Iy θ̇s2φ cθ sθ − Iz θ̇c2φ cθ sθ + Ix θ̇cθ sθ
ηd =  θd  =  atan2 (Tdx /Tdz )  (10)
From (6), the differential equation describing the dynamics of ψd ψd
the rotational movement and the Euler angles of the quadrotor
can be expressed as where atan2 denotes four quadrant inverse tangent function.
Note that since the desired Euler angular velocities η̇d do
η̈ = J −1 (τ − C(η, η̇)η̇). (7) not need to be in a direct correlation with the desired Euler
>
angles, η̇d = φ̇d , θ̇d , ψ̇d can be suitably defined where
This model does not incorporate external effects such as
the effect of the air drag. Such effect may be added to the φ̇d , θ̇d and ψ̇d denote desired Euler angular velocities in φ, θ
dynamics of the inertial translational movement in (3) as and ψ directions, respectively.
Similar to the translational movement control, a
1
ξ̈ = (RT − γ − Aξ̇) (8) proportional-derivative (PD) control law may be used
m for the rotational movement as
where A = diag{Ax , Ay , Az } ∈ R3×3 is a diagonal matrix
whose components are the drag coefficients in the directions
   
υφ Kpφ φe + Kdφ φ̇e
of x, y and z, respectively. Note that the air drag compo- υ =  υθ  =  Kpθ θe + Kdθ θ̇e  (11)
nent here is a dissipative force and is part of the external υψ Kpψ ψe + Kdψ ψ̇e
translational forces in the model in (2)-(3). In other words,
we have f = RT − Aξ̇ for this case. Any other external where υ ∈ R3 . The PD coefficients Kpi and Kdi , i = φ, θ, ψ,
translational force can be incorporated similarly. The non- are the proportional and derivative gains, respectively. Then,
disipattive potential forces such as γ appear as a result of the given the inertia tensor I of the quadrotor, the vector of desired
potential energy. Note also that since it is difficult to define torques τd can be expressed as
more complex interactions due to the dependencies on thrust  
and angle of attack, the matrix A is defined to be diagonal τφd
resulting in decoupled effect of the air drag components. τd =  τθd  = Iυ, (12)
τψd
C. Stabilisation and Trajectory Control
In this section, we define the trajectory control problem for which guarantees the rotational control.
a single quadrotor. To this end, let ξe = [xe , ye , ze ]> = ξd −ξ In order to achieve T d ∈ R3 and τ d ∈ R3 , one has to
and ηe = [φe , θe , ψe ]> = ηd − η denote the position adjust the angular velocities of the motors. The desired angular
and the Euler angle errors, respectively. Here, the vectors velocities of the motors ωd can be obtained from the thrust
ξd = [xd , yd , zd ]> and ηd = [φd , θd , ψd ]> denote the desired and torque equations as
positions and Euler angles, respectively. Similarly we can  
lbTdz − 2bτθd + klτψd
define the corresponding velocity errors as ξ̇e = ξ̇d − ξ̇ and 1  lbTdz − 2bτφd − klτψd  .

η̇e = η̇d − η̇. ωd = (13)
4klb  lbT dz + 2bτθd + klτ ψd

In order for the quadrotor to track a desired trajectory,
lbTdz + 2bτφd − klτψd
for the translational movement one can use a proportional-
derivative (PD) control law of the form Let ωe = ωd − ω be the vector consisting of angular
velocity errors of the motors. When the motor is modeled with
   
ux Kpx xe + Kdx ẋe
u = uy  =  Kpy ye + Kdy ẏe  (9) first order dynamics, we have ω̇ = Kmot ωe where Kmot is
uz g + Kpz ze + Kdz że the motor constant.

965

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - MARMARA UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on August 07,2020 at 18:59:11 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 III. S WARM DYNAMICS
50
In this section we extend the quadrotor model to a homo- Potential
geneous swarm of quadrotors. To this end, we express the 40 Force

Potential and Force

Lagrangian of a swarm consisting of N -quadrotors as
30
N
X N
X N
X
L(q, q̇) = Li (q, q̇) = Ekini − Epoti (14) 20
i=1 i=1 i=1
10
where q = ξ > > > > > ∈ R6N represents the
 
1 , η 1 , ..., ξ N , η N
coordinates (overall state) of the swarm and Ekini and Epoti 0
are the kinetic and potential energies of the i-th quadrotor,
respectively. Note also that q i = ξ > > > ∈ R6 represents -10
 
i , ηi 0 2 4 6 8 10
the coordinates (configuration) of quadrotor i. r
The total kinetic energy of the swarm is given by
Fig. 2: Lennard-Jones potential
N N N
X 1X > 1X
Ekin = Ekini = mi ξ˙i ξ˙i + η˙i > Ji η˙i
2 2
1! " ! σ "n 2
σ 2n
U = 4ε −
i=1 i=1 i=1 10
r r
10
Similarly, the total potential energy of the swarm can be n=6
n=5
calculated as 10 8
n=4
N N N −1 N n=3
10 6
X X X X n=2
Epot = Epoti = g mi zi + Uij n=1
i=1 i=1 i=1 j=i+1

U
10 4
where Uij denotes the artificial potential energy arising due
to
PNthe interaction of agentsPi and j. Note here also that 10 2
−1 PN N PN
i=1 U
j=i+1 ij = 1/2 i=1 j=1,j6=i Uij holds. It is
possible to design the inter-agent potential using different 10 0

methodologies. Here we use the interatomic-like potential

10 -2
discussed in the next section. 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
r
A. Artificial Potential Based Formation Control
Fig. 3: Interatomic-like potentials with different orders
In solid-state physics, a potential known as ‘Lennard-Jones’
is a simple model that approximates the interaction between a
pair of neutral atoms. The interatomic potential between two more applicable and tractable for the dynamics of quadrotors
atoms i and j is given by [12] with angle restrictions and motor angular velocities. Therefore,
 12  6 ! the potential is chosen as in (16).
σ σ
ELJ = Uij = 4ε − +ε (15) Utilizing (2) for (14) and extracting the dynamics for the
rij rij
individual agents from the overall dynamics one obtains
where ε and σ are the minimal potential energy and zero-
energy distances between i and j, respectively and rij is the N  
X 2σ 1
distance between i and j. Fig. 2 illustrates the interatomic f i = mi ξ̈ i + γ i + 4εσ − ~r ij (17)
rij 4 rij 3
potential and the corresponding potential force as a function j=1
j6=i
of the distance between the atoms.
τ i = J i η̈ i + C(η i , η̇ i )η̇ i (18)
In order to use such an approach to develop a formation
and collision avoidance control for a swarm, we simplify and
where the term
redefine the potential energy between i-th and j-th quadrotors
as n n  
2σ 1
 2 ! X X
σ σ Fi = Fji = 4εσ − 3 ~r ij (19)
Uij = 4ε − +ε (16) rij 4 rij
rij rij j=1 j=1
j6=i j6=i
where rij now represents the distance between i-th and j-th
drone, i.e., rij = k~r ij k = kξj − ξi k. Note that the proposed is the conservative potential force due to the artificial potential
potential function (16) satisfies the conditions given in [1], [13] energy of the swarm interactions.  Note that it>is three dimen-
which present general properties for aggregating potentials. sional vector of the form Fi = Fix , Fiy , Fiz ∈ R3 .
It is shown in Fig. 3 that as the order of the ratio of position- Utilizing this inter-agent interaction force in the controller
based interaction decreases, the related energy level becomes equation the desired force in the z-direction of the inertial

966

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - MARMARA UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on August 07,2020 at 18:59:11 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 TABLE I: Quadrotor Parameters TABLE II: Controller Parameters

Parameter Value Unit Parameter Value Unit

g 9.81 m/s2 Kpx 1 1/s2
m 0.468 kg Kpy 1 1/s2
l 0.225 m Kpz 2 1/s2
k 2.98 10−6 kg · m Kdx 2 1/s
b 1.14 10−7 kg · m2 Kdy 2 1/s
Ixx 4.856 10−3 kg · m2 Kdz 3 1/s
Iyy 4.856 10−3 kg · m2 Kpφ 5 1/s2
Izz 8.801 10−3 kg · m2 Kdφ 6 1/s
Ax 0.25 kg/s Kpθ 5 1/s2
Ay 0.25 kg/s Kdθ 6 1/s
Az 0.25 kg/s Kpψ 5 1/s2
Kdψ 6 1/s
ε 6.25 N ·m
σ 0.4 m
Kmot 20 1/s
frame and the corresponding desired force vector for i-th
quadrotor are calculated as

m(g + Kpz zei + Kdz żei ) + Fiz 20

Tdi = (20)
cφi cθi
10
and  
m(Kpx xei + Kdx ẋei ) + Fix
Tdi = R>  m(Kpy yei + Kdy ẏei ) + Fiy  (21) 0

Tdi
where Tdi ∈ R3 . Note that these will also affect desired
torques as discussed in Section II-C. Finally, the ultimate
controllers that provide stability, trajectory tracking, auto-
formation and collision avoidance are obtained as
1 Fig. 4: 5 quadrotors in circular-tracking with planar pentagon
ūi = ui + Bi Fi
m formation
and
ῡi = Kpζ ηei + Kdζ η̇ei
where ui ∈ R3 is as given in (9) implemented for
quadrotor i, Bi = diag{1, 1, cφi cθi } ∈ R3×3 , ηei is
the vector of Euler angle errors of the that quadrotor,
Kpζ = diag{Kpφ , Kpθ , Kpψ } ∈ R3×3 , and Kdζ =
diag{Kdφ , Kdθ , Kdψ } ∈ R3×3 .
Note here that in this section we defined the artificial
potential energy based on the distance between the quadrotors
rij = k~r ij k = kξj − ξi k which is defined in R3 . This means
that the achieved formations will be in general in R3 . If only
planar formations are desired, than one may define the artificial
potential
using the inter-quadrotor
distances in the X-Y plane quadrotors getting closer to the central point while artificial
as rij =
[xj , yj ]> − [xi , yi ]>
. interatomic-like forces get stronger. With an adjusted gain
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
In order to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed
control laws, we consider two scenarios: (i) planar formation
with circular trajectory tracking and (ii) swarm auto-formation
in 3D. For these simulations, the quadrotor and controller
parameters are selected as listed in the Tables I and II,
respectively.
y
-10
-20
-20 -10 0 10 20
x
(22)
(23)
A. Planar Formation with Circular Trajectory Tracking
Consider the trajectory tracking problem of a swarm con-
sisting of N = 5 quadrotors where the objective is to follow
a given circular trajectory for the warm while preserving the
planar formation. For a random choice of initial quadrotor po-
sitions, the obtained trajectories of the quadrotors are as shown
in Fig. 4. Formation starts with the central point where every
quadrotor is being attracted with the trajectory tracking control
law. After a certain distance between quadrotors, artificial
potential becomes more effective then the trajectory control
law due to the fact that trajectory control law diminishes as
between these forces, an equilibrium occurs. In case there are
no dissipative forces in the system, then the total energy of
the swarm is conserved, while it is interchanged between the
kinetic and the potential energy. In case, dissipative forces are
also incorporated, then the total energy decreases with time.
In any case, as the formation is achieved the artificial potential
energy due to the interactions is minimized. The obtained
planar pentagon formation is shown in Fig. 5.
The inter-distances of the quadrotors are depicted in Fig. 6a

967

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - MARMARA UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on August 07,2020 at 18:59:11 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 the interatomic-like forces to the control law dominates and
d1 d1 the quadrotors establish a formation as illustrated in Figs. 8a
d2 and 8b.
d2

d2 50
d1 d2 d1
40
d2
d1 30

r
Fig. 5: Formation of the drones at t = 40.
20

whereas kinetic energy, gravitational potential energy and arti- 10

d2
ficial potential energy of the swarm are illustrated in Fig. 6b. d1
The gravitational potential energy rises since the quadrotors 0
0 10 20 30 40
move to the desired altitude. As can be seen from the figure, as
the agents get close to each other, the artificial potential energy t
decreases and converges to a constant which corresponds to the (a) Inter-distances of the quadrotors
potential energy of the desired formation. The kinetic energy
250
also converges to a constant which illustrates that the swarm
moves with constant overall speed along the desired trajectory. 200
KE
Note that the final distances between two quadrotors are either Gravitational PE
d1 or d2 in the planar pentagon formation. Furthermore, as 150 Artificial PE
can be seen from Fig. 7, the momentums of the quadrotors
E 100
dramatically increase at the first moments of the movement
until the quadrotors reach the desired altitude. Then, artificial 50
potential acts as an attractive force since the inter-distances are
relatively large which together with the trajectory control law 0

lead the quadrotors to get closer to each other. Once the inter- -50
distances reach a critical value, artificial potential starts to act 0 5 10 15 20
as a repulsive force. Both formation and trajectory tracking t
are achieved when these forces are in balance. (b) Energies of the swarm
As the number of quadrotors increases, the quadrotors will
not achieve a regular planar polygon with number of edges Fig. 6: Inter-agent interactions for 5 agents
equal to the number of agents. In other words, some of the
agents will be located inside the formed polygon, while the
number of edges of the polygon will be less than the number
of agents. This is due to the fact that the minimum of the
artificial potential energy will not correspond to the shape with 4
number of edges equal to the number of agents. Moreover, as
3
Momentum

mentioned earlier, the formation may become a 3D formation,

unless the artificial potential is defined in the X-Y plane only. 2
This is illustrated in the next section.
1
B. Swarm Auto-Formation in 3D
0
In this section we consider the case in which a 3D formation 30
is achieved. Consider a swarm of N = 12 quadrotors where 20 40
30
the objective is to summon at a desired location ξd = 10 20
10
[0, 0, 10]> . Each quadrotor is being attracted to the desired Distance 0 0
Time
location ξd by the control law (22). At the same time, the
rotational control law (23) adjusts the necessary orientation Fig. 7: Evolution of the distances to the center of gravity and
of the quadrotors. At the first stages of the movements of the momentums of the quadrotors with time
quadrotors, the interdistances are negligibly small as compared
to the position errors ξe which yields a rapid movement to the The interdistances and the energies of the quadrotors are
desired position. As the quadrotors approach to the desired given as functions of time in Figs. 9a and 9b, respectively. At
location (consequently toward each other), the contribution of the first moments of the simulation, the kinetic energy of the

968

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - MARMARA UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on August 07,2020 at 18:59:11 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 10 40

30
5

20

r
0
y

10

-5 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
t
-10
-10 -5 0 5 10
(a) Inter-distances of the quadrotors
x 600

(a) Top view 500

KE
Gravitational PE
20 400 Artificial PE

300

E
15 200

100

10
z

-100
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

5 t

(b) Energies of the swarm

0 Fig. 9: Inter-agent interactions for 12 agents

-10 -5 0 5 10
x
(b) Side view 60

Fig. 8: 12-quadrotor auto-formation 50

40

swarm increases very rapidly to achieve the desired altitude zd 30

E

which provides a rapid increase in the gravitational potential 20

energy of the swarm (t < 8). Then, the quadrotors come closer
10
to each other relatively slowly, causing the kinetic energies to
be small (8 < t < 15). Finally, the interatomic-like forces 0
dominate the control law (15 < t < 40) and consequently the
-10
ultimate formation is achieved. As can be seen from the figure 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
the kinetic energy converges to zero which means that the t
swarm has stopped. Since the artificial potential energy also Fig. 10: Gravitational potential energies of the quadrotors
converges to a constant value, one can deduce that the swarm
has converged to a constant configuration. Fig. 10 depicts the
individual gravitational potential energies of the quadrotors between the quadrotors, we utilized a conservative interatomic-
which can be seen to converge to different values for different like potential energy function and the corresponding forces.
swarm members corresponding to different altitudes. This The approach can be utilized for swarms composed of agents
illustrates the 3D nature of the obtained formation. with different agent dynamics as well. We have also verified
V. C ONCLUSIONS the effectiveness of the illustrative control laws for different
scenarios by numerical examples.
In this paper we have investigated the formation control
problem of a swarm of quadrotors where the dynamics are R EFERENCES
represented by an energy based model using the Lagrangian
approach. The model within the proposed framework consists [1] V. Gazi and K. M. Passino, Swarm Stability and Optimization. Springer
Verlag, January 2011.
of individual quadrotor dynamics as well as the interaction [2] V. Gazi, “On Lagrangian dynamics based modeling of swarm behavior,”
dynamics between the agents. In order to model the interaction Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, vol. 260, pp. 159–175, October 2013.

969

Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - MARMARA UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on August 07,2020 at 18:59:11 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 [3] S.-J. Chung, A. A. Paranjape, P. Dames, S. Shen, and V. Kumar,
“A survey on aerial swarm robotics,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics,
vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 837–855, August 2018.
[4] A. Kushleyev, D. Mellinger, C. Powers, and V. Kumar, “Towards a
swarm of agile micro quadrotors,” Autonomous Robots, vol. 35, no. 4,
pp. 287–300, 2013.
[5] A. A. Bandala, E. P. Dadios, R. R. P. Vicerra, and L. A. G. Lim,
“Swarming algorithm for unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) quadrotors–
swarm behavior for aggregation, foraging, formation, and tracking–,”
Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Infor-
matics, vol. 8, no. 9, 2014.
[6] B. Yu, X. Dong, Z. Shi, and Y. Zhong, “Formation control for quadrotor
swarm systems: Algorithms and experiments,” in 32nd Chinese Control
Conference (CCC). IEEE, 2013, pp. 7099–7104.
[7] G. Gioioso, A. Franchi, G. Salvietti, S. Scheggi, and D. Prattichizzo,
“The flying hand: A formation of uavs for cooperative aerial tele-
manipulation,” in International Conference on Robotics and Automation
(ICRA). IEEE, 2014, pp. 4335–4341.
970
Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - MARMARA UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on August 07,2020 at 18:59:11 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
[8] M. Saska, J. Vakula, and L. Přeućil, “Swarms of micro aerial vehicles
stabilized under a visual relative localization,” in International Confer-
ence on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE, 2014, pp. 3570–3575.
[9] K.-K. Oh, M.-C. Park, and H.-S. Ahn, “A survey of multi-agent
formation control,” Automatica, vol. 53, pp. 424–440, 2015.
[10] T. Luukkonen, “Modelling and control of quadcopter,” Independent
research project in applied mathematics, Espoo, vol. 22, 2011.
[11] M. A. Toksöz, S. Oğuz, and V. Gazi, “Decentralized formation control
of a swarm of quadrotor helicopters,” in 15th IEEE International Con-
ference on Control and Automation (ICCA 2019), Edinburgh, Scotland,
UK, July 2019.
[12] G. Rutkai, M. Thol, R. Span, and J. Vrabec, “How well does the
Lennard-Jones potential represent the thermodynamic properties of
noble gases?” Molecular Physics, vol. 115, no. 9-12, pp. 1104–1121,
2016.
[13] R. Falconi and C. Melchiorri, “A decentralized control algorithm for
swarm behavior and obstacle avoidance in unknown environments,”
IFAC Proceedings Volumes, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 44 – 49, 2008.